A condition is cast as a threat to societal values, amplified by media, and met with disproportionate control.
Cohen's 1972 study of the Mods and Rockers. His stages — concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality, volatility — apply as readily to modern platform panics as to 1960s seaside brawls.
In practice
- A local newspaper campaign about a rare crime produces sentencing changes affecting a category the crime was not in.
- A workplace panic about one data breach produces a policy that blocks the tool everyone was using safely.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change